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There's also this quicklook from Giantbomb. Their webplayer supports 60 fps but you may need to set it to progressive and hd before clicking play. Their player is a bit buggy and likes to get stuck. It's also spoilery as hell so if I were you, I'd watch about as far as you feel comfortable. The first 4 minutes are from the Tutorial Area though and skipped the story stuff. So, you can watch it until there and see how it looks, how the framerate fairs you and get a look at the options menu.

I fail to understand gripes about graphics. Certainly they aren't going to make high end rigs cry, but I think they look just fine. Especially since the Souls game need smooth frame rates above all else.

Very eager to play this. Also I wonder if its about time for inevitable DS2 thread?

It'll take some time. First it will need to brave the zOMFG Lighting/Graphics not Crysis circlejerk, which has 40 pages of salty dripfed river-construction on their agenda. This was something that the circlejerk decided long before the first Dark Souls even came to PC.

It completely kills the immersion factor, I cannot imagine playing Skyrim without ENB.
And that's one of he better looking parts of the game apparently, it's outside.

I recently had to wipe Skyrim and all my mods from my HDD and then reinstall. After the game downloaded, I decided to load up a save with no mods, just to see what it was like. Holy shit, did it look absolutely garbage. I could only look at it for about 5 seconds before quitting in absolute disgust. Funny to think that just a couple years ago when I was playing through the vanilla game for the first time, there were points where I couldn't believe how good it looked. ENB and 2k texture packs have killed the vanilla game for me.

"What were we talking about? Pegasuses, pegasii, that's horses with wings. This motherf*cker got a sword that talks to him. Motherf*cker live in places that don't exist, it comes with a map. My God."

The Inevitable Dark Souls II for PC Official Thread

Yup, THAT time of the year has come. The time when the heady anticipation for the sequel to one of the best games of recent times grows bigger and stronger.

15 days to the Steam release of DS2 - I reckon it's high time to start the hype train for those of us who haven't played the console version. (Those scumbags don't belong in a PC gaming discussion anyway, right?)
Here goes any discussion, hints, covenant, event or general blather about DS2.

I fail to understand gripes about graphics. Certainly they aren't going to make high end rigs cry, but I think they look just fine. Especially since the Souls game need smooth frame rates above all else.

Very eager to play this. Also I wonder if its about time for inevitable DS2 thread?

Well maybe you can understand that the DS2 team put out images quite a while ago of some very decidedly "next-gen" -ish graphics showcasing the improvements in graphics. You can understand how people would take that as truth? Many people feel mislead including me. I'll still enjoy it but I am let down for sure, and it's the dev's fault.

People not understanding the concepts work in progress and subject to change? Okay...
If you feel mislead, don't buy the game. Just don't. Period. Stay away. Save your money. Stick to your integrity. But ohh wait, you would miss a great game with superb atmosphere and great art direction that way?! Can't be!? See, that's why it's hard to take this graphics shitstorm seriously. Graphics are more than just shiny shaders, but people are throwing a hissy fit because of it.

Even more funny because the lighting is great and really atmospheric in many areas of the game, but of course the circlejerk would never show those areas. Doesn't add to the rage as much as intentionally blurred screenshots with intentionally squashed gamma and angles to omit features that are actually there and claim they're missing.

Oh man I cant wait. I have successfully avoided any spoilers and know practically nothing about the game as I type this. I looked at some review scores out of curiosity for the consoles and its getting the expected 9s and 10s. I think gamespot's only complaint was "the lighting was bad in some places" or something like that. Strong contender for GOTY right here.

Well maybe you can understand that the DS2 team put out images quite a while ago of some very decidedly "next-gen" -ish graphics showcasing the improvements in graphics. You can understand how people would take that as truth? Many people feel mislead including me. I'll still enjoy it but I am let down for sure, and it's the dev's fault.

Many people WERE mislead. Because they saw the intentionally shitty screenshots released by trolls and still think that is what the game looks like. Imagine that you did the opposite of what people do in the screenshot thread: You set all the settings to their absolute worst and made sure to get pictures in motion and the like. That is what those "oh mah gawdz, they lied to us" pictures were. Don't believe me? Go youtube a few bits.

Yes, the game is not as gorgeous as the pre-release footage. Pretty much no game is. But it is still a beautiful game on the PS3 and there is still a lot of gorgeous lighting and the dragons on the bridge are still there and are still awe inspiring.

Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.

People not understanding the concepts work in progress and subject to change? Okay...
If you feel mislead, don't buy the game. Just don't. Period. Stay away. Save your money. Stick to your integrity. But ohh wait, you would miss a great game with superb atmosphere and great art direction that way?! Can't be!? See, that's why it's hard to take this graphics shitstorm seriously. Graphics are more than just shiny shaders, but people are throwing a hissy fit because of it.

Even more funny because the lighting is great and really atmospheric in many areas of the game, but of course the circlejerk would never show those areas. Doesn't add to the rage as much as intentionally blurred screenshots with intentionally squashed gamma and angles to omit features that are actually there and claim they're missing.

I will agree with you that people are making a bigger thing out of it than what it is. Even cherry picking the worse looking shots to amplify the problem. I'm only stating I was let down that the graphics don't match early shots but to me graphics are about 20% of a games enjoyment. I'm currently playing Thief Gold and enjoying it for that matter. Yes I will play it and enjoy it as DS is a one of a kind game but if I can have my shinies on top I'll take em.

I'm a filthy traitor who is playing it on his PS3, but here are some spoiler-free thoughts:

It's still tough as nails, but it definitely smooths over some rough edges. It subtly but effectively communicates when you need to regain Humanity and upgrading isn't the nightmare crapshoot of holding on to boss souls indefinitely in the hope that your favored weapon upgrades the way you want it to.

I don't think the narrative is quite as good as in DS1, and there are some odd decisions made about when and how much you learn things.

The bosses do lean a little heavily towards the "armored humanoid" end of the spectrum, but they overall seem a little nastier to me than the bosses of the first game. Their arenas are tighter and more hazardous, and they're less susceptible to cheesy tactics.

It's less rigid than DS1. Some people don't like this and would have preferred a tighter narrative, but I like that the game rarely gets to "bang-head-against-wall" states like DS1; if you can't beat a boss or something, there's almost always somewhere else you can go, and many of the bosses are actually skippable (although finding the routes around them can be a challenge all its own...).

So I recommend it. It's eaten up most of my gaming time since release, so there's very little to really complain about.

Firmly aboard the hype train here, have managed to avoid spoilers and very much looking to immersing myself in the world.

Here's a question for Drinking With Skeleton's or other race-traitors (I have no idea if that's an acceptable term to use, even in a tongue in cheek way): Does duel wielding, or running without a shield work? I've heard that dodging is a bit harder this time around, but I think a nimble duel-wield, dodge heavy playstyle is my preference over hiding behind a massive shield. I don't want to gimp myself or make things impossibly hard though.

Firmly aboard the hype train here, have managed to avoid spoilers and very much looking to immersing myself in the world.

Here's a question for Drinking With Skeleton's or other race-traitors (I have no idea if that's an acceptable term to use, even in a tongue in cheek way): Does duel wielding, or running without a shield work? I've heard that dodging is a bit harder this time around, but I think a nimble duel-wield, dodge heavy playstyle is my preference over hiding behind a massive shield. I don't want to gimp myself or make things impossibly hard though.

In many cases, it works a lot better. Shields are a lot less useful this time around with pretty much all the 100% block shields being tower shields (the real kind, not Eagle Shield).

Apparently "adaptability" makes your dodge roll better. I did not know that, and I still was able to dodge a lot of attacks with my load and bigass shield. So for a competent dodger, it should be trivial.

I am not convinced dual-wielding is a particularly good idea (Someone else on the boards strongly disagrees on that :p), but going without a shield is DEFINITELY viable and a lot better for many fights.

Steam: Gundato
PSN: Gundato
If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.

I've heard that dodging is a bit harder this time around, but I think a nimble duel-wield, dodge heavy playstyle is my preference over hiding behind a massive shield. I don't want to gimp myself or make things impossibly hard though.

Hell yes.
I've played it with a dual wielding caestus (Fists) build from start to finish, it's very viable. Surprisingly so. I imagine even moreso with actual weapons that have base damage and aren't just scaling of stats. A boss early on will hammer dodging into you, until you're perfect with it. I nearly reached my breaking point there but I persisted - and it's smooth sailing from there as the lessons are invaluable in the long run. Two things to note though:

You may need to invest in the Substat Agility to get any mileage out of the build.
You will want to "powerstance" it, so your weapons work in tandem. Powerstance is the actual dual wielding but requires 1.5x the stats of the weapons to do.

Firmly aboard the hype train here, have managed to avoid spoilers and very much looking to immersing myself in the world.

Here's a question for Drinking With Skeleton's or other race-traitors (I have no idea if that's an acceptable term to use, even in a tongue in cheek way): Does duel wielding, or running without a shield work? I've heard that dodging is a bit harder this time around, but I think a nimble duel-wield, dodge heavy playstyle is my preference over hiding behind a massive shield. I don't want to gimp myself or make things impossibly hard though.

No clue. I'm a mage through and through. Dodging certainly is viable, although there are definitely bosses that will punish you for rolling willy-nilly without regard to the environment. I have heard anecdotally that dual-wielding is viable; I think there's even a starting class built around it.

Sounds like it's viable although I'm not entirely sure if I class myself as a 'competent dodger' just yet! I suppose you can have a decent amount of flexibility with the secondary item slots.

I played a lot of DS as a heavily armoured bruiser who could take a few hits, but I think perhaps that because it seemed to be the 'optimal' way to play the game (I had literally no interest in sorcery outside of blowing up invaders with sneaky last minute weapon switching using the dlc sorceries).

Anyway, I guess the best way to find out if it works is to try it, though I'm probably not brave enough to go with duel Caestus' right off the bat!